Grains of Sand
by PWTMC
Summary: Team seven fights a different kind of war. AU!Modern military, Nonlinear storyline, Eventual character death, Possible noncon among other wartime atrocities. Character-centric, no real parings.
1. Alpha

Interval 01

* * *

Kakashi Hatake is their squad leader – an already war-hardened and decorated Sergeant Major with both airborne and sapper tabs. He's a career soldier with enough horror stories to last a lifetime, though he doesn't really share them. He's thirty-four and has been in the military since he graduated high school at seventeen.

He was a high honors student.

Sergeant Major Hatake has this transplanted eye in his skull and it's blue, almost as blue as Specialist Uzumaki's, but much, much more icy. It's colder than the black one to it's right and if it weren't for the scar bisecting that half of his face nobody would think that the blue one was the transplanted one. Kakashi's naturally black eye fits him so well it's impossible. It isn't loud, but it's warm and welcoming and when Kakashi gives the soldiers under him a pat on the back or a compassionate smile _that's_ the eye you see in it.

The blue eye came out of a war. That's the problem with it. It gives him a really striking aprearance, one that sticks with every man in his company.

He only ever talked about it once, back when he had a full squad to lead.

Out of nine soldiers twenty year old Specialist Sasuke Uchiha was by far the most jaded and cold and _terrifying_ – he was the one that kept a deathletter to his family in the pocket of his BCUs and he was the one funneling half his paycheck into military life insurance. He left the papers out in the open while he signed away his life, another bad omen for the other eight men in his squad to carry.

Their first day on patrol, Sasuke taped his blood type to the side of his boot; thick, black, permanent marker screaming 'AB NEGATIVE' against shiny silver tape. Specialist Uzumaki stopped dead in his tracks at the sight of it.

"What the hell are you doing that for, man?" The blond asked, looking all too ready to rip the offending sticker off and throw it away, "All your death preperations aren't exactly great for morale, you know."

Sasuke shrugs, smoothing his pale fingers over his handiwork to make damn sure it sticks nice and clean, "I'm just being practical."

"Well, isn't that what you have dog tags for, Uchiha?"

"You can never be too prepared for war."

This is where Sergeant Major Hatake cuts in, dropping his ruck on the bench beside Specialist Uchiha with a soft thud. "Sasuke's right. I lost my eye when I was your age and when they went to look for my tags they were nowhere to be found. I dropped them somewhere, never found 'em. Either way, they gave me bad blood and I almost died."

At that, Kakashi tugs the material of his jacket off and drapes it carelessly over his stuff before lifting a hand to his left sleeve and pulling it up. On his arm, tattooed in letters just as bold as the ones written on Sasuke's boot, read 'O POSITIVE'. The Sergeant Major smirks at the boys' fallen expressions and lets his sleeve fall back with his retreating hand.

"It was one hell of a surgery." He claims.

He then smoothes his hands over his neatly tucked in t-shirt and puts his jacket back in place.

* * *

Interval 02

* * *

Sakura Haruno is twenty years old. She's a future pediactric surgeon who signed up as a combat medic to get an edge on her fellow competetors for medical school.

Then, of course, after she graduated basic training she began to feel like maybe there was more here for her than college money and something nice to put on her resume. Suddenly it became all about protecting the men beside her – and that's literally all there was. Men. Sakura's job was like a loophole to the strongly conservative political atmosphere tarnishing the good name of Konoha. It was one of the only jobs that allowed women to see combat and even then combat wasn't something written into their contracts. She, as a woman, could fight and die here in Suna and never get the same credit any male infantryman would get.

Still, Sakura woke up every day motivated.

Sakura came to Sergeant Major Hatake's squad as a Sergeant, outranking six out of the nine members. This was due to her job and her talent. Sakura took pride in what she did and she was beyond excited to get out of the combat support hospital and into the battlefield. She often told her mother in letters sent home, "It's not about pulling a trigger and eliminating the enemy, it's about patching my men up and sending them home in first class cabins instead of bodybags."

But Sakura did have carry a gun.

In movies, the members of an already tight-knit squad are often bitter toward a replacement, but Sakura was welcomed almost instantly. She didn't get stiff officer's handshakes, she got fist-bumps and high-fives and enthusiastic Army brand hooah's.

It was much different from the hospital.

Sakura never really believed it before, but she's heard stuff from the other medics – the ones that have seen combat. It always ranges along the lines of "they'd take a bullet for their medic, because the medic is the only one that can take it out".

She's a believer now.

* * *

Interval 03

* * *

Sasuke was still a bit of a fresh soldier. He hadn't been in long enough to even dream of changing his MOS (not that he'd want to, of course) and he hadn't exactly gone to sniper school like Kakashi had, but he still prided himself on being a sharpshooter. He was honor grad, after all. Everything Sasuke did, Sasuke did right.

When Sasuke pulled a trigger with intent to kill, he killed.

Just once, on a routie patrol, he took a shot and he missed.

"Friendly fire _happens_." He was told so over and over, but twice as many times, every time he closed his eyes, he saw it replay in his mind – a man in a Konoha Army uniform falling to the scorchingly hot sand, red seeping into yellow grains, Sergeant Haruno running to their fallen soldier with Sergeant Major Hatake trailing behind and providing cover fire – and he hates himself for it.

Sure friendly fire happens, but it shouldn't happen to him.

The bullet extracted from a nameless, but not faceless, ally's leg shouldn't have come from Sasuke's gun and maybe the medevac should have come sooner. Maybe then Sasuke wouldn't have to feel so bad, just this once, for taking a life.

Kakashi tells him in soothing, but definately not patronizing, tones, "You won't fix it by blaming yourself, Specialist", and Sasuke can tell by looking at his eyes that at least half of him means it. Naruto buys him shot after shot of illegally purchased alcohol and they get completely plastered together. Sasuke bets that Naruto did it to help him forget, but it only sharpens the memory. Enhances it. Sasuke can almost feel the warmed up trigger against the bend of his finger and he can see the sudden lock of that soldier's knees and the helpless flail of his arms as he falls over before he passes out. Sakura assures him that it was painless.

Yeah, right. She's a liar.

Sasuke's never been shot before, but he's shot enough people to know.

Sasuke is ready to keep his personal pity party up forever until Sergeant Major Hatake tells him, "Suck it the fuck up, soldier. Are you trying to shoot another man? I don't need you out there distracted like this. So help me God, I'll have you evaluaed and send your ass _home_ if you don't move on."

And Sasuke really doesn't want another one of his own men's blood on his hands.

* * *

Interval 04

* * *

If there's one thing Sergeant Major Hatake drills into everybody's head the day they're put on his squad, it's that teamwork is key. And when he says it, he means it. Both his eyes are threatening when he leans in, scanning the small crowd of young faces, and says, "They're called battle buddies for a reason. Out here, we're all each other's best friend."

His strategy is always golden. He lives by a "look to the man next to you" philosophy and in turn his subordniates all live by it. It's probably the biggest reason they're all alive at all. He must say the word 'team' or 'together' or anything else to that effect about a million times a day. It's a wonder when his repetition turns into brainwashing.

Sasuke certainly wonders about it, anyway. Particularily after an incident deep in an evacuated Sunagakure city. There's six of them out today and Sakura has her hands full, applying a tourniquet around a screaming soldier's leg while Sergeant Major Hatake helps her apply pressure to the near detached limb. IED's will do that. They still need to call for a medevac, but something tells them that the explosion alerted the enemy and everyone is on edge, hiding out in a tiny stone building.

Suna really is quite a piece of crap. When Sasuke is gone, he's gone. He'd rather die than come back here.

Scratch that.

And maybe knock on wood?

Specialist Uzumaki stands guard by the single window overlooking what's supposed to be a yard – now it's just a mortared-up shithole. He frowns, clearly bothered by the pained moans and terrified screaming coming from the other side of the room. If he looked he'd see both Kakashi and Sakura covered in blood, too much to replace and the medevac probably won't bother coming. That doesn't stop them from trying.

Then, suddenly, Naruto's frown is wiped clean off his face. "Uh-oh", he announces, "We've got company."

Sergeant Major Hatake's head snaps up from the bloodied mess he's helping his medic with and he yells, "Well, shoot first!"

What with all the noise in their area, there's no way they can hope to stealth it out.

Sasuke lines his gun up next to Naruto's and feels a third body slide in with theirs at the window. They begin to fire at will and Sasuke immediately feels like he's going to get shot in the face. They're way too exposed here. His shoulders hunch up ever so slightly and he bites his lip, eyes narrowing against his sight.

There's only about fifteen men out there and almost no cover for them to take, so they _almost_ get mowed down like they're under fire from a machine gun. But not quite.

Somewhere in the mix, a grenade makes it through the opening in the celing. It hits the floor with a sharp ping, audible over the now sparse gunfire. Everyone turns, eyes widen, and there's a simultaneous feeling of – the 'fuckwe'realldead' moment – shock. The split milisecond that passes feels like a trillionth of that, like they didn't even look and it doesn't even register yet.

Then Naruto and Sasuke are standing at the window alone and their third gunner is in pieces around the room. Sakura is screaming and it's not just her that's covered in blood, _everyone_ is.

And five seconds too late it hits Sasuke – their battle buddy threw himself over the grenade and took the impact of it. They're all alive and breathing in the scent of iron and the heat of the explosion, but they're all okay. Mostly.

He shakes, turning back to the window and running a trembling hand through his too-long hair. Next to him Naruto is cryinng, be it from lingering fear or genuine regret, he can't tell. Sasuke can't help but wonder if that man even knew what he was doing. Was it a reflex? Would he take it back? Why didn't he just throw the goddamn grenade _back_? Better yet, why was he _the only one to move at all_?

And then he realizes that it's Kakashi's teamwork crap. He peddals it on them to make himself feel safer. If he hadn't been hearing the protect your baddle buddy speech 24/7 before he died, it might have went down a lot differently.

And then the rational side of Sasuke reminds him how ridiculous that sounds and how paranoid he's being. It's probably just the grief talking.

It took under ten minutes, but two people are dead. Well, seventeen if you want to count the Suna casualties.

* * *

Interval 05

* * *

Naruto never had any intentions of joining the military before he met Kiba Inuzuka. Kiba was one of those guys that knew they what they wanted since birth and Kiba wanted to be a soldier. He never questioned it and he signed a contract the day he was old enough.

His mother didn't want him to join, so Kiba had to wait until he was eighteen just to go around her. He left his little house and his mother and his sister and all their dogs and their white pickette fence behind to be a part of Delta Force – the elite of the elite.

But, before he left, he completely brainwashed his best friend. Naruto let Kiba lure him into a four year contract for college money and a stable job. Naruto was a mediocre student, lost in the shuffle and destined for a community college. The Army sounded like a great deal every time Kiba put the offer on the table.

Two months before Kiba shipped to basic training, Naruto talked to a recruiter. Once his own contract was signed every day was a party for the two of them. An endless bender – shots of vodka at late night parties and beer in the morning to push back the inevitable hangover. It only took the words "I deploy in fifty days" to get laid. Naruto just never realized that what they were doing was living harder in preparation for dying young. Not until Kiba's pre-ship party.

He was distant all night until the worries started pouring out. Kiba's fears about Konoha's growing tension with Suna and his regrets about convincing Naruto, his own best friend, to dive headfirst into such a risky business.

Naruto assured him that there would be no war and that the articles in the news and the broadcasts on TV were all bullshit, because when were Konoha and Suna _ever_ buddies?

Kiba left in the morning and halfway through his training, only two weeks before Naruto was gone himself, the war was finally declared.


	2. Bravo

Interval 06

* * *

"Shoot me! Just shoot me, dammit!"

What used to be a strong voice, a soldier's voice, came out a garbled mess of pleading syllables. Oxygenated bubbled foamed out of his mouth and blood trickled down the sides of his face and down the collar of his fatigues.

Sasuke's hand shook on the trigger, sights aimed down at a dying brother's head. He swallowed hard, looking to Sakura for something – anything – that looked like permission. She didn't look back, ignoring the soldier's cries as she applied her knowledge of shoddy combat medicine in a feeble attempt to save this man's life.

"Just shoot me!"

Sasuke looked to Naruto, who's blue eyes urged him to do it. Whether Sakura would stop or not, there was no point in prolonging this man's suffering.

Sasuke couldn't bring himself to kill another one of his own, though. He'd already taken a Konoha troop's life once before and it was something he still had nightmares. How could he do this now? He would surely regret it later.

Yet the look on his face. The terror in those pain-filled eyes.

"What are you waiting for?" Naruto asked, voice trembling as he raised his own gun. Sasuke could tell he didn't want to do it, either. Not while Sakura was still cauterizing wounds and whispering to this man that he would be okay.

Still, the loudest sound in the barren piece of desert wasteland they got stuck patrolling was their injured comrade's pleads to end his misery.

The IED they rank into took a leg and the arm Sakura was working with was barely hanging on by a tendon. She could rip it off if she wanted to, hardly putting in any effort at all. He'd bleed out before a medevac could get here. And shockingly, even more frightening than the raging debate over pulling the trigger in his head, Sasuke couldn't help thinking that the pain-wracked, dying man on the ground could have easily been him.

Running into an improvised explosive device in Suna was like Russian roulette. It all depended on where you sat in the humvee or who was watching where they stepped in the sand or if they could get their hands on an MP with a bomb dog. Anyone could die at any time.

"Okay, okay." Sasuke said, and Naruto lowered his own weapon with what could only be relief barely hidden on his face.

"No." Sakura suddenly interjected, hands stilling on the rapidly quieting man's injured form, "Both of you sit back and let me do my job. He's in no fame of mind to be making a rational decision."

As debatable as it was, Sasuke had already made up his mind. He aimed, flicked the safety off his rifle, and slid his eyes shut running a silent prayer through his prayer.

Sasuke hadn't prayed since he was a child.

Then a loud 'bang!' sounded through the tense desert air and Sasuke forced his eyes open. His finger was still hovering over the trigger. He never pulled it.

A fresh bullet wound oozed blood out of the back of a now dead soldier's head. Sakura's mouth formed one thin, angry line. She looked ready to scream at someone – him? - but even more so she looked like she wanted to cry.

"Nobody will be able to tell we hadn't tried." Sergeant Major Hatake said.

Sasuke could see Kakashi to his left if he tilted his head just so, pistol in his hand still pointed down. Kakashi was the one to pull the trigger.

"It looks like a battle wound to me."

* * *

Interval 07

* * *

More often than not, their tiny squad ends up camping out in the desert heat, missing out on the luxuries many other troops enjoyed on base. Today the three of them were assigned another replacement, making a four man squad.

Normally, they would have nine.

Men and women at home weren't too enthusiastic about another war and fresh bodies were in high demand. So, they had to deal with small groups. They had to deal with the same risk, the same danger, under prepared.

That thought in mind, Sakura prayed she wouldn't step on some land mine buried in the harsh terrain as she stepped out to brush her teeth.

She stood feet away from the makeshift tent they'd constructed earlier, moving her toothbrush back and forth over her teeth, ensuring they'd be shiny and clean for the rest of the war.

"Hey, dude."

Sakura turned to face Naruto. She didn't even hear him approach. The young woman took the toothbrush out of her mouth and spit a mix of her own saliva and white toothpaste on the desert floor.

"What did I tell you about calling me dude?" She asked, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand.

"Not to?" The blond replied, laughter in his voice.

"Yeah." Sakura agreed, "So don't."

He just shrugged it off and plopped down on the ground. There was no point in being wary of the sane any more. Everyone had it in every article of clothing, brushing up uncomfortably on every inch of skin it possibly could.

"Is this children's toothpaste you're using, sergeant?"

Naruto lifted the bubblegum flavored product up to scrutinize and Sakura snatched it away.

"Yes, Naruto. It is. Because bubblegum flavored toothpaste is the highlight of my damn day. It's better than the MREs we eat."

"Hm. I never thought of it that way."

* * *

Interval 08

* * *

They always had the most interesting conversations during their down time. It was a product of the awful combination of stress, bored soldiers, and overactive imaginations.

Though as far as they went, this one was relatively calm. And definitely large. Kakashi's squad was full tonight – no recent deaths on the battlefield.

Sakura was particularly taken with (though it would be unprofessional of her to act on it) an older man, one with a sapper tab that went by the name Shiranui. He introduced himself to her as Genma, though. "Just Genma."

Genma missed the bar down the street from his apartment back home. His mention of it sparked the topic of the night, a depressing group walk down memory lane.

"I miss fast food."

"I miss my girlfriend."

"I miss regular meals and my bed."

"I miss my Xbox."

They always had the most interesting conversations.

"I miss... I miss... I miss."

Finally came Sakura's turn to voice her distress.

"I miss painting my nails." She said with a sigh.

Laughter spread around the group of butch Army men. What she should have said she missed was the company of other females, ones that could sympathize with her loss of femininity in the war and understand how totally worth it it was at the same time. She smiled anyway, knowing the laughter was only playful, not mocking. Soldiers were all one big family at the end of the day. It just so happened that she was the only sister in the group.

Naruto. "I miss ramen."

Sasuke. "I miss late night runs through the park; just me, the cold air, and my iPod."

Kakashi. "I miss singing my daughter to sleep."

Stunned silence.

Nobody would have guessed Kakashi even ever took his thirty days of leave from the Army every year, let alone took the time to father a child and to miss singing her to sleep at night. The image of Master Sergeant Hatake with a little girl – that probably looked a lot like him. Sakura hoped she had blue eyes, not black ones. - was almost too ridiculous for words.

Interesting conversation, they had.

* * *

Interval 09

* * *

"Medic!"

Sakura could hear the screams, coming from countless directions, but she knew she's only one person and she can't take care of them all. She was busy dragging -bullet-wounds-and-a-broken-finger into the building to her immediate right. All she could do for him was give him some morphine, tie some tourniquets, and assure him that he wasn't dying.

They were always low on medics and today was a particularly rough day.

Sakura was literally the only trained individual on the battlefield.

And the screaming for the medics that just weren't there was becoming just a bit overwhelming.

"Medic!"

Sakura didn't know what to expect when she went to training (not exactly anyway, because who really can?), but whatever she thought was far from this chaos. She was no stranger to throwing limbs into plastic bags or pulling metal rounds out of flesh with her bare fingers. She had seen shrapnel wounds, torn off limbs, third degree burns, and every single inside imaginable.

"Medic!"

Her fingers had tugged more dogtags off of dead bodies than her entire squad combined and she'd held more men in her arms, watching the light in their eyes fade away, than she even cared to remember.

"Medic!"

Sakura wiped the blood off her face and she was on to the next one.

* * *

Interval 10

* * *

Kakashi was leading their regular patrol one disgustingly hot Sunday afternoon when the four of them – the squad regulars – stumbled upon what could possibly make their military careers.

"Holy shit, guys." Came Naruto's voice, barely more than a whisper, "We have to radio this in."

Then Sasuke's more quizzical, "Do we go in, guns blazing, or do we just walk away?"

Sergeant Major Hatake remained quiet for a long while, before saying, "It looks abandoned to me, Corporal."

"Looks abandoned isn't the same as actually being abandoned." Sasuke commented.

Kakashi headed down, anyway. His squad had no choice but to follow. It wasn't every day you stumbled on a hidden bunker. This one definitely was not on any map any of them had ever seen, which was ridiculous considering the sheer size of this place.

This discovery just might mean promotions for the four of them. Though, Kakashi might be as far up as he could go unless he was looking at officer candidate school. That probably wouldn't be happening, though. After being enlisted for so long, men usually stayed enlisted until retirement. And Kakashi was already counting down the months until he could throw in the towel on this entire war.

"Sergeant." Kakashi called, looking to Sakura, "Come up here and watch my back."

"Of course."

Sakura flicked the safety on her gun off while her superior kicked in the door, his own weapon pointed as he stepped through. They each checked their sectors, announcing when each one was validated as being clear.

"Clear!"

"Clear!"

"Clear!"

Room after room. The building was definitely abandoned, but you could never be too safe, especially when half the war was hidden explosives. Most soldiers' biggest fears involved driving on the wrong side of the road or taking one wrong step in the sand for a reason.

"Cle... Clear?"

Specialist Uzumaki's statement came out as more of a question, his tone blatantly skeptical.

Sergeant Major Hatake sighed in frustration, "Well, which is it? Clear or not?"

"It's definitely clear." The blond decides.

Naruto's teammates head back toward him, guns pointed out, eyes instinctively scanning everything they passed.

And what they stumbled into made each one of them stop dead in their tracks. The thought that perhaps Naruto was right to be so quizzical snapped through Kakashi's head so fast he almost didn't even realize it was coming out of his mouth.

"Holy shit, guys." Sakura finally said, "We have to radio this in."

They hadn't just found any random bunker, they stumbled upon the site of what could only be some of those infamous beheading videos Suna liked to make so much.

A video camera, tape ejector wide open and empty, sat in the middle of the room, pointed at one brown, tipped over chair. There were blood stains on top of blood stains covering the hard, uncovered floor. The longer they stood there, gawking at the horrible scenery, the more overwhelming the smell of it all became.

Not everybody had the stomach to watch the footage produced in these rooms, but they were still notorious. Everybody knew about them.

Women were a favorite. In Suna, women weren't allowed to be in the military at all. Their taking members of the weaker gender and savagely cutting, with seemingly the dullest blades, off their heads was the ultimate 'fuck you'. It made a lot of troops, and a lot of civilians, very angry.

And suddenly everybody in the room began to feel just a little more protective of Sakura.

The idea that they probably shouldn't touch anything was floating around, but the dog tags hanging out of the hole in the eastern wall were too tempting. Sakura crossed the room to grab them, her boys' eyes on her back as she did. She had a feeling they would belong to their men. Who else could they belong to?

She pulled them out and flipped them over, glancing over each one with her chatoyant green eyes.

Finally, she held up the cluster in one of her petite hands.

"We're going to get promotions for finding all these."

They were definitely theirs.

* * *

Interval 11

* * *

It had been almost two weeks since they last time any of them had seen combat on their patrol and the general assumption was, right when the screaming match started, that they were simply itching to see it again.

It wasn't really so much of an itch as it was dread, though. They couldn't turn their guard off and they were all antsy.

Spilled alcohol was all it took to get the fists swinging.

Naruto chose to take his Sunagakure war induced cabin fever out on a Navy Corpsmen one night in a bar – and he definitely won.

Sasuke chose to take his out by blocking it all out entirely.

Sakura had her books and Kakashi had... his books.

Fighting boredom in Suna made everybody feel equally guilty.


	3. Charlie

Note - So, studying rank structure over the past week has made me realize how ridiculous it was for me to give Kakashi the rank I gave him. I probably should have done my research there. Oh well? Since it's fanfiction, let's just try to shrug it off. We're all learning something here :p

* * *

Interval 12

* * *

When the mail comes in, Sasuke gets a letter from his girlfriend. It's not the first one he's gotten, but it's the first one anybody got loud about. This one came with pictures.

Pictures of her, the young woman Sasuke referred to as 'Ino', half naked with her civilian attire ditched in a corner somewhere for her equally civilian-like rendition of a slutty and unimaginative soldier. Most of the men on base in Suna go crazy for that shit, what with women coming in few and far in between, but it only elicited an eyeroll from the Uchiha.

Sasuke spent every waking moment out in this war, dressed in his own fatigues in the stifling hundred degree weather. He would have rather seen Ino in the tiny purple nightie she wore after his pre-ship party.

The authenticity of it kind of made him sick.

The pictures were passed around like Sasuke didn't care, like the comments made about his own girlfriend weren't so perverted and derogatory. Maybe he genuinely didn't. Since arriving in Suna everything about everyone seemed to change and maybe a little comment about something that was so painfully and obviously his regardless couldn't bother him any more.

Or maybe it was just that being away from her for so long made him care less. Most guys that got pictures in the mail didn't pass them around like Sasuke did.

Late at night, when they've gone back out on patrol, Sasuke pulls the images out of the pocket of his uniform. He flicks through them, stoicism etched into his face, and he sighs.

Sakura looks over his shoulder at the picture - all busty blonde, back arched, made up face and six inch heels - and she laughs. "That's not the kind of woman I pictured you going for."

Sasuke shrugs back at her, "You know how things are. We were supposed to do the buddy program, but I wanted to be infantry. Even if I was willing to switch my MOS, this job isn't right for most women."

Specialist Uchiha spins around in his chair and taps the pictures against one pale palm, eyebrow quirked, "I don't think I'd be able to trust her in the battlefield. Not when she has nails to break and implants to protect."

And his eyes scan Sakura's lean, lithe form - athletic body hidden under her BCUs, breasts forced against her chest in her sports bra, no make up on her clear complexion. Sasuke is so blunt there's no way he can't be hitting on her.

But Sakura wants to be taken seriously. As a medic. Not as a whore.

Sasuke spins back around in his chair.

* * *

Interval 13

* * *

The desert is fucking hot.

In Konoha, weather like this doesn't happen. Nobody is used to it now nor will they ever be. It's hot and that's a fact, everybody knows it. Everybody can feel it - that gross sticky, constant need for a new shower that you never get considering you're out on patrol is the worst part of it.

Unless you get shot because of the heat. Then a shower seems trivial.

It's a regular evening, the sun nowhere near ready to set and bless the soldiers on the field with the four or five odd hours of nightfall that Sunagakure actually gets. The cold weather is welcome right about now. After stifling in the absurdly hot weather for countless hours, the cold isn't a problem.

It's too hot for long sleeved fatigues and it's way too hot to be wearing all the protective armor that goes along with it, so it's discarded with the possibility of a heat stroke. Sakura is a combat medic and she's hardly here to treat those, anyway. She earned her early promotion to Sergeant by patching up bullet wounds and getting bloody, not by doling out water and dragging men into the shade.

It's kind of sad really.

But typical.

And it finally happens, Naruto takes a bullet right to his chest. The round tears right through the thin fabric of his T-shirt - much unlike the way it wouldn't have through his Kevlar - and rips a straight path through his body and into the sand in front of him.

The sound of the gunshot makes everybody snap right into action and despite the fact that he isn't wearing his Kevlar either, Sergeant Major Hatake runs right out to his Specialist as the blonde screams and falls, clutching at the wound with trembling hands. A man getting shot is never a pretty picture.

Kakashi slings the younger man over his broad shoulders and jets. He's playing some seriously hard Russian roulette. It's impossible to get eyes on whoever is hiding on them and it only takes a sniper a second to pull the trigger.

Sakura doesn't want to look. She wants to close her eyes and turn her head, but she knows she can't because Kakashi will have Naruto to her in a second and she'll be responsible for patching him up and calling for a medevac.

Kakashi is particularly amazing for his age. He has Naruto over to Sakura in what feels like a second.

The specialist's wound looks awful, the kind of vomit-inducing war movie wound she thought she would be ready for when she was a civilian. It's worse in person. He's having a hard time breathing and Sakura can't even feel an exit wound. He'll need surgery, but it's not like she can do that here, she isn't even trained for that. There isn't much she can do at all.

Sakura does the best she can until the medevac arrives to take him away. The flight medic is impressed.

Even after Naruto recovers, he doesn't go home.

* * *

Interval 14

* * *

Kakashi is fucking intimidating.

Everything about him.

Straight up, fucking, intimidating.

He's much older than his squad and much more experienced, his rank is awesome, one that definitely should have secured him a cushy job outside the battlefield if he so chose to take it. He's got that scar on his face and those mismatched eyes and the mysterious story behind it that nobody gets the right to be privy to.

Kakashi is cleaning his gun with a Q-tip when he and Sakura have their first one-on-one conversation.

It's kinda funny, too. Kakashi never went to officer candidate school, he's enlisted just like she is, but Sakura can't help but feel disobedient when she doesn't refer to him as "sir" or salute when he passes.

He doesn't even look up from his task.

"It must be fun for you here, what with you being the only attractive female around for miles and miles and miles."

He's got a smile on his face, not exactly a happy one, but he isn't disrespecting her, either. They've worked together long enough now for him to know damn well that she isn't here for anything but the job.

She's reminded of her conversation with Sasuke.

"Not particularly." She says, "I'm a medic, not a whore."

And Kakashi laughs, tilting his head back, genuine, "God, I love that answer. How very military of you."

Sakura smiles back at him, feeling the contagion of his laughter full-force, "Yeah, well, I'd be lying if I said I didn't like the view, though."

And they both laugh.

* * *

Interval 15

* * *

Mail call.

Naruto makes a mess searching his pile of letters - he must have a lot of friends at home - until he finds exactly the one he's looking for. He beams, tearing the envelope open.

"Girlfriend?" Specialist Uchiha asks, leaning over and looking over his shoulder.

Naruto shakes his head, "My parents."

And Sasuke laughs. Naruto must be the only one in their company, probably even the entire collaborative military, that gets that honest-to-God excited to hear from mommy and daddy. It seemed like most of the younger men and women here joined just to get away from home. For the experience.

And here Naruto was, all broad smiles and excited blue eyes, heading for the family letter first.

"My dad was in the Army, you know." Naruto explained, scanning the front half of the lengthy letter, "Every time he closes out he tells me he'd so proud of me."

He flipped to the back, where sure enough right at the bottom in big bold letters was 'WE'RE SO PROUD OF YOU!'

"It makes my whole day. He was infantry for eight years, retired a Sergeant First Class, and I make him proud."

The blonde smiled at the thought.

"Maybe that's because you're his son?" Sasuke questioned, "Anything you do would make him proud. It should, anyway."

"He's glad I'm following in his footsteps." The Specialist continues, then he looks to Sasuke, "Were either of your parents in the military?"

Sasuke laughs again, "No, definitely not. They hate that I'm here. I have a brother in the Marine Corps. It took them three years to accept that and when I decided I wanted to go Army suddenly the Marines were the best people ever. They wanted me to go for the image."

Because nothing beats Marine Corps class, right?

Sasuke shrugged, "I don't usually reply to their letters."

OOO


End file.
